KASHMIR : NETAJEE U HAVE NO CHOICE - Stand by Our Soldiers OR Stand by the side of Cowards.

SOURCE:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/let-us-stand-by-our-soldiers-in-kashmir/269266.html



“I want to be clear: there is no justification for violence against law enforcement. None. These attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one. They right no wrongs. They advance no causes”.

                             NETAJEE                        


           KYA HAAL KAR DIYA IS MULK KA

         


                  DEKH TERE JAWAN KI HALAT

               KIA HO GAI  BHAGWAN,

            KITNA BADAL GIA JARNAIL
                           [ READ AS ]

                                             DOOMED HE IS


            SHOOTS HE IS DOOMNED 
                                   &
    DOES NOT SHOOT HE IS DOOMED

JAWAN BEING KICKED BUT CANNOT               DEFEND HIMSELF THOUGH HOLDING AK47.


             HE HAS BEEN FORBIDDEN 
                                TO
                DEFEND HIMSELF.
      

Let Us Stand by Our Soldiers in Kashmir

                                    By

                   Capt Amarinder Singh

The situation in J&K is such that the Army is damned if it acts and damned if it does not. It needs the government’s backing. AFP


A few days ago, a picture was posted on Facebook showing a young CRPF jawan lying on the ground being kicked by gloating hooligans who believe they have the right to treat our security forces as such, and are the answer to Kashmir’s problems.

That was for me a case of “Enough is Enough”.

These hooligans seem to believe that India will succumb to their macho instincts. By now they should have realised that Kashmir is a part of India, as Maharaja Hari Singh had signed the Instrument of Accession on August 18, 1947, long before they were born. That was then the condition laid down for all Indian princely states, and that signature made Kashmir an integral part of India, notwithstanding the regular hiccups from Pakistan or from their sympathisers in the Valley.

Recently, a mobile patrol of 14 RR near Bandipura was attacked. Tomorrow it may be some other military establishment. The headquarters of 15 Corps at Srinagar was attacked in the past. The pattern is consistent, when military activity is curtailed or subdued, militancy rises.

History has on so many occasions shown us that unless the writ of the government is firmly established, negotiations are futile.

This phenomenon of the Valley turning out for a militant’s funeral will happen and will grow unless the government acts. The past is full of incidents which have strengthened militancy through appeasement. We today have Mehbooba Mufti as the Chief Minister, whose penchant for playing with fire is well established. We had militants being released in the past for her sister Rubaiya Sayeed; the first act of appeasement.  Her father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, was then the Union Home Minister. We then had the Delhi-Kathmandu flight hijacked to Kandahar in 1999. Three prominent militants in custody were released, including Maulana Masood Azhar of the Jaish-e-Mohammad. This was followed by an attack on our Parliament in December 2001, with Azhar being the mastermind. Appeasement only leads to the strengthening of the militants’ morale, while demoralising that of one’s own forces

It was after the failure of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s Operation Gibraltar in 1965, that the ISI escalated its involvement in Kashmir. When the holy relic of the Prophet was stolen in Srinagar in 1964 and riots broke out, all that was required to quell the riots were four Punjab Armed Police battalions.

Look at the force level today?

This is not the fault of the Army or the other security forces, but a confused Kashmir policy that has brought the current situation to the fore. The Army can contain a situation to a point, it is then for the Government of India (GoI) to take whatever political initiatives are required.

The trouble is that before the Army brings Kashmir to the point necessary for negotiations, dabbling commences and the first casualty is the Army itself.

Those who do not have any experience of counter-insurgency operations seem to comment the most and do untold harm to the system. These are not riots, as the PDP MP, Muzaffar Baig, would make us believe by quoting a Supreme Court ruling, but full-fledged insurgency. This procedure is not possible in a full-fledged battle and I believe, has not been the intention in the SC’s judgment.


The Army must be allowed to bring militancy under control to a point where those professing it realise that the time has come to talk. Yes, people will die in the ensuing action, then so be it. Kashmir is Indian territory.  If those owing allegiance to Pakistan’s ISI continue to create instability then they must face the music. The Burhan Wanis may be the glamour boys for many, to India they are the perpetrators of violence and separatism. Let them not live with a mistaken belief that they have the upper hand.


The Government of India must allow freedom of action to the Army. The directive must be just one: “Bring a situation in the state where the writ of India runs and not that of the ISI”. Yes, in the ensuing clashes collateral damage will take place.

No soldier likes such action.

,He is trained to face the enemy not protecting his back(ARSE) against treacherous elements.

We have had this experience in Nagaland, Manipur etc. The British army considered their Northern Ireland commitment prior to peace with the IRA, in the same light. It was the IRA which finally decided to talk peace when they could not face growing military pressure.

 
In such situations, the government must support any military action taken. Unfortunately, this has not been the situation. For instance, in Budgam when a car broke through a military checkpoint in November 2014, the soldiers manning the post opened fire, as was their duty.

 One officer and eight jawans were court-martialled and imprisoned.

Penalising soldiers for doing what was expected of them is unacceptable. It is for the Chief and his Northern Army Commander to stand by their men in the difficult duty they are performing and not succumb to political pressures.

A patrol was mobbed in the Qazigund area and an effort was made by the mob to snatch weapons from the soldiers, the patrol had to open fire to extricate itself, in which one man and two women were killed.

The Army says it “deeply regretted” the incident and an inquiry has been ordered.


This is ludicrous.

 Are we becoming an army of girl guides?

What would have happened to the patrol leader had they managed to snatch the weapons? It seems the current policy is that you are wrong if you do and you are also wrong if you don’t – an absurd situation.

In the late 1950s, my battalion was in Nagaland. The orders were that no Naga would be dressed in khaki and would carry a weapon. One day, in the early morning mist an NCO-led patrol came across a Naga in khaki with what looked like a weapon (it was a staff). When challenged, he panicked and ran and the patrol opened fire killing him. It so happened, his daughter worked in the PMO. In the rumpus that followed, the PM demanded the battalion be disbanded. The Army Chief, General Thimmaya, refused to comply. He stood by his battalion and his NCO. Here we are today still serving the country. This is what the Army expects from our Chief and our Army commanders.


It would be appropriate to end with a quote from President Obama’s statement on the recent violence against the police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

 “I want to be clear: there is no justification for violence against law enforcement. None. These attacks are the work of cowards who speak for no one. They right no wrongs. They advance no causes”.


This in full applies to Kashmir.














  

PLA MODERNIZATION : The Influence of Russian Military Reform on PLA Reorganization

SOURCE:
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=45236&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=25&cHash=e51f219141235d07f848a53fd69cba47#.V5Bp1RFf1zm



                     PLA MODERNIZATION

: The Influence of Russian Military Reform on

                        PLA Reorganization
                                       By
                                                          Yevgen Sautin

 

Former Russian Minister of Defense Anatoliy Serdyukov and his reforms were closely watched by the Chinese military (Image: Wikicommons)

DATED: March 28, 2016



The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is in the midst of the biggest reorganization and reform effort since the 1980s. Among the major changes announced, the country’s primary nuclear deterrent, the Second Artillery Corps, was upgraded to a separate service branch called the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF).

In addition, the PLA Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) was set up to bolster space, cyber, electronic warfare, and other high-tech military capabilities.

Finally, the ground forces received their own, separate headquarters to improve combat effectiveness. In February, China consolidated seven military regions (大军区) into five brand-new theater commands (战区) (China Brief, February 4). Perhaps most importantly, the PLA plans to cut 300,000 personnel. More changes are expected in the next few years; the PLA’s military education system, command structure, and logistics and supply systems are all likely to be overhauled.



The reorganization accompanies and complements a modernization program intended to create a 21st century fighting force that is better equipped, modular and able to meet a wide range of objectives. These reforms and the planning for them did not take place in a vacuum. Chinese military thinkers have keenly watched military modernization programs in other nations. The experience of Russia’s military reforms in the wake of the 2008 invasion of Georgia have been of particular interest, and Chinese planners have closely followed Russia’s reforms and adopted some of their signature concepts.

Compounding Russian influence, Russia’s military industrial sector is expected to play an important role in the PLA’s modernization, with Russian and Soviet legacy designs making up key components of China’s newest forces.




Russia’s Military Reforms (2008-Present)

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991, the Russian military has been in a state of constant flux. The Kremlin recognized that major reforms were urgently needed to account for changing demographics and the growing sophistication of modern combat, but the economic turmoil of the 1990s combined with the Chechen Wars doomed several reform efforts.


Although combat readiness had improved in the 2000s, the 2008 Georgian War revealed many of the Russian military’s shortcomings. Orders were slow to travel down the chain of command, a lack of coordination between the air force and troops on the ground led to higher casualties, and a breakdown in intelligence and planning resulted in the Russian air force losing several aircraft to Georgia’s anti-aircraft missile batteries. Russian troops were able to overwhelm the overmatched Georgian army, but the after-action review left little doubt that changes were badly needed.



Shortly after the Georgian war Russia’s Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov launched a sweeping reorganization of the army. Although Serdyukov’s (2008–12) reorganization is only one component of a broader, ongoing three-stage plan of rearming and modernizing Russia’s military by 2020, the reorganization has been by far the most controversial aspect of the modernization. In the span of four years, the Russian military did away with many of its long-held practices. Russia significantly reduced the size of its officer corps; the military moved away from a Soviet divisional model of organization to a NATO-like brigade structure. [1] Supply and logistics jobs were outsourced to private contractors; and the military education system was radically altered.



Proponents of the reform argue that the changes improved the combat readiness and professionalism of the army. Opponents counter that while reform was necessary, Serdyukov’s initiatives were poorly thought-out and resulted in widespread chaos and demoralization. Serdyukov’s reforms were met with fierce opposition from Russia’s military establishment and remain a source of derision. And while Western analysts dismissed the criticism as personal resentment over losing coveted sinecures, there is anecdotal evidence that the transition to private contractors led to serious service and supply disruptions (Ekho Moskvy [Russia], June 3, 2015). , even defenders of the reforms have admitted that the army continues to lack the promised high-tech and high-precision weaponry (Nezavisimoe Voennoye Obozrenie [Russia], July 23, 2010). The controversy surrounding the changes ultimately proved to be Serdyukov’s undoing; he was sacked in 2012 and tried for corruption. Serdyukov’s dismissal and trial seem to have placated critics of the reforms; his successor, Sergei Shoigu, has managed to keep most of the changes made by his predecessor.



Following Russia’s sudden annexation of Crimea and the ongoing campaign in Syria, pundits have been quick to declare the Russian military to be a revamped, modern fighting machine—seemingly vindicating Serdyukov.

Some Chinese commentators have also expressed admiration for Russia’s latest military reforms and have openly urged the PLA to use the reforms as a model for their own efforts (People’s Daily Online, October 5, 2015). Such views are by no means universal; PLA National Defense University Professor Wang Baofu has pointed out that in both Ukraine and Syria Russia is mostly using Soviet-era weaponry and technology. A combination of troop reductions and the increase in military élan has given Russia some renewed military success, but its army is still largely a conscript force reliant on outdated weaponry (PLA Daily, November 27, 2015).

 Russia’s large-scale snap exercises such as Vostok and Zapad have also impressed both domestic and foreign observers, but the 2014 Vostok exercises in the Far East exposed persistent problems in coordination and an acute shortage of modern military equipment (RIA Novosti, September 23, 2014).



On the surface, the PLA’s reorganization and reform plan overlaps with several key objectives of Russia’s recent military reorganization. Military strategists in both countries agree that organizing rapid reaction forces with an integrated command-and-control structure is a top priority. Even though Chinese military experts do not believe that copying the U.S. military model is feasible for either China or Russia, the Western brigade structure of command is generally favored (NetEase, February 16).




Personnel Reforms

China has closely followed the evolution of Western armies and there is speculation that China will transition from a mixed division/brigade structure toward one predominantly made up of brigades.

In 1999, two divisions within the 20th Group Army, the 58th Mechanized Infantry Division and the 60th Motorized Infantry Division, were reorganized into brigades. Both units had a decorated history starting from the Korean War and were chosen to be part of an experiment into using a brigade-level command structure. Russia’s experience with moving to a brigade structure has been more contentious, and since 2013 two elite divisions, the 4th Guards Kantemirovskaya Tank Division and the 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division have been reconstituted. Ostensibly the move was made to preserve historical traditions of legendary units, but there is reason to believe that Russian commanders have not entirely bought into the Western-style brigade system of command. Indeed, the creation of an additional three divisions in the Western military district was announced in January of this year (EDM, January 19).



The announced troop reductions may be the most important element of the PLA reforms. So far, only the Nanjing Military Region Art Troupe has been axed, but there are plans to do away with units that have outdated equipment, and personnel that serve in various non-combat related capacities. The cuts along with the creation of new theater commands necessitate major changes in army billeting. The changes may prove to be painful in the short term; Russia’s experience in consolidating its military districts led to significant resentment over inadequate military housing. To create a more efficient command structure, the PLA must trim its officer ranks and increase the number and quality of non-commissioned officers (NCOs), another priority shared with Russia (EDM, April 17, 2012; China Brief, October 28, 2011). This will be a difficult endeavor; at the battalion-level, units are often understaffed, while higher up there is a proliferation of noncombat headquarters that are staffed by both commanding officers and Political Commissars (政委).



Little is known about the plans to “deepen the reform of army colleges” and the wider military education system, but changes will have to be made to better prepare officers for the demands of modern warfare. Today’s officers are expected to learn several increasingly complicated weapons systems over the course of their careers, something that requires strong fundamentals. The Chinese military education system differs from both the U.S. and Russian models, and is often criticized as being too theoretical and lacking realistic practical experience. Serdyukov’s attempts at revamping the Russian military education system were rolled back by his successor, and there is little to indicate that China’s efforts will be any easier.



Hardware Modernization

Another daunting aspect of the reforms is the need to replace outdated weapons systems and equipment. Despite the growth in defense spending and procurement, many PLA units continue to use Cold War–era relics. During the latest Stride-2015 (跨越) military exercises in Zhurihe (朱日和), Type 59 tanks (in service since 1959) were deployed alongside more modern equipment (NetEase, February 16). Such outdated equipment is impossible to integrate into modern communication systems, and the vast quantity of antiquated weapons will take years to replace. Making matters worse, the Chinese arms industry has struggled to produce indigenous high-quality weaponry. In the crucial sphere of air-defense, despite making gains in the last fifteen years, China still suffers from inadequate capabilities. The Chinese HQ-9 (红旗-9) SAM system has been billed to be an improvement over the U.S. MIM-104 Patriot and the Russian S-300, but China has struggled to attract foreign buyers (Sina, April 8, 2015). China has been able to copy the Russian S-300, but according to Russian experts the reverse-engineered model is inferior to the original (Nezavisimoe Voennoye Obozrenie [Russia], November 27, 2015). Beijing is still covered by Russian-made S-300 systems.


China’s R&D allocations have grown from $3.1 billion in 1997 to an estimated $40 billion in 2013 (amidst an almost exponentially growing defense budget), but China continues to trail both Russia and the United States in crucial technologies such as stealth and aircraft engines (USNI News, November 10, 2014). [2] To address the technology gap, China has turned to both espionage and leveraging the private sector through the strategy of “integrating the army and the people, locating military potential in civilian capabilities” (军民结合, 寓军于民). [3]

One area where Chinese manufacturers have been able to make gains is in guided missile technology; according to Chinese sources, Chinese know-how now surpasses that of the Russians (Sina Military, March 4). China is also ahead in developing a fifth-generation fighter plane, the J-20.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-20]  


 Overall, China’s defense industry is encountering a similar problem to Russia’s: more spending does not necessarily result in the procurement of new equipment in the quantity needed for true rearmament. With the Russian armament industry backed-up with domestic orders, the PLA will have to largely rely on Chinese capacity to meet ambitious refurbishment goals.



The political dimension of the unfolding PLA reforms is also worth comparing to Russia’s efforts. President Xi Jinping has stressed that China needs to build a modernized, powerful army with Chinese characteristics that is loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and able to protect national security and national interests (People’s Daily Online, March 3). The CCP’s direct command of the PLA has always been a non-negotiable aspect of China’s system, and there is no indication that Xi Jinping wishes to attenuate the party’s guiding role as part of the PLA’s modernization. In terms of geostrategic vision, Beijing has voiced concerns that the international environment is becoming increasingly uncertain and that dangers posed to Chinese security have grown (People’s Daily Online, March 3). On the surface such a view of the world is largely in congruence with the Kremlin’s position, but that is where the similarities end. Beijing has shown no indication it wants to be a standard-bearer for any putative anti-Western bloc. Instead and despite the occasional tough rhetoric, Beijing has opted for a gradual chipping away of the status quo where it sees it to be unfair to China’s long-term interests. That said, some PLA officers have called for greater protection of “overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese interests,” in a language uncannily similar to Putin’s justification for the Georgian War and Crimea’s annexation (Global Times, October 25, 2011). Analogous language was included in China’s 2015 Defense White Paper (China Daily, May 26, 2015). Whether PLA’s reforms lead to an increase in assertiveness remains to be seen.

One area where decades-long doctrinal views may finally shift is in regard to foreign bases. The Chinese anti-piracy efforts off the Horn of Africa demonstrated the difficulty of repairing and supporting ships out at sea, and to that end China has already reached an agreement with Djibouti to establish its first foreign base (China Brief, January 26). Traditional reluctance notwithstanding, China’s growing naval capabilities, coupled with growing international responsibilities and interests in potentially unstable developing countries, may result in a more active Chinese global military presence.



CONCLUSION

The PLA has embarked on an ambitious course of reform and restructuring. Replacing outdated equipment alone will be a major challenge that will stretch far beyond 2020. China has closely studied the successes and mistakes of Western and Russian military reform efforts, gaining insight into best practices and potential pitfalls. While it is too early to render any judgment, the PLA should not be underestimated in its capability to carry out big changes; it successfully carried out major troop reductions in the 1980s and 1990s, rebuilt the military education system after the Cultural Revolution, and gave up control over many sectors of the Chinese economy.







Notes

1. The Soviet army was organized into divisions that were usually comprised of 5–6 regiments, including support and fire regiments. The total number of soldiers varied from as few as 5,000 to upwards of 20,000, with most divisions having around 12,000 troops. The NATO brigade structure typically has three battalions plus supporting units. Usually a brigade consists of approximately 3,200 to 5,500 troops, roughly half the size of a Soviet division.

2. Roy Kamphausen and David Lai (Editors) The Chinese People’s Liberation Army in 2025, (Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. War College Press: 2015), p. 145.

3. Ibid.

Yevgen Sautin currently works in the financal sector. He received an M.A. from the University of Chicago and speaks and reads Chinese and Russian. Mr. Sautin was a David L. Boren Fellow at the National Taiwan University and a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

---

               Document

     China’s Military Strategy

May 26, 2015

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https://news.usni.org/2015/05/26/document-chinas-military-strategy

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                         Russo-Georgian War
            

   [   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War ]




                                       For the 1921 war, see  
                 Red Army invasion of Georgia.



[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_invasion_of_Georgia  ]

 

TURKEY: Conspiracy, Paranoia, and Real Plots: The Bizarre History of Turkey’s Military Coups

SOURCE:
http://www.vox.com/2016/7/19/12225564/conspiracy-turkey-military-coup

Conspiracy, Paranoia, and Real Plots: The Bizarre History of Turkey’s Military Coups

                                   Updated by

 

                                                                 James Palmer

 

     July 19, 2016.

 

       

Pro-Erdoğan supporters wave Turkish national flags during a rally at Taksim square in Istanbul on July 18, 2016, following the military failed coup attempt of July 15. ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images

A lot is still uncertain about the failed coup in Turkey on July 15, but one thing seems clear: The coup leaders believed they were acting in a long Turkish military tradition of protecting Turkey’s democracy from its elected leaders. Since 1960, the military has seized the reins of power in Turkey four times, acting, in their view, to guard the values of the Turkish republic from those who would threaten it.
 

This time the threat, they thought, came from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
 

Erdoğan, who won a heated presidential election in 2014 after a long span as prime minister, has governed in an increasingly authoritarian fashion: censoring the press, arresting political opponents, brutally quashing protests, and attempting to abrogate greater and greater powers to his office. While eschewing radical Islamist movements and publicly reaffirming secularism, he’s given a stronger role to religious education and ramped up his own Islamic rhetoric.

 

It’s hard to puzzle out the truth amid the events of what Kerem Öktem, a professor of Southeast European studies and modern Turkey at the University of Graz, described to me as a “hyperreal coup,” where both Erdoğan and some of his opponents are “blurring the line between reality and fabrication.”

 

On the surface, the coup was the most recent exchange of fire between popularly elected leaders and a military that believes it, not the voters, knows best how to guard the country’s democratic legacy. But behind that, there’s a morass of conspiracy accusations, deep-rooted paranoia, and real plots that goes back decades.
 

Why does the army think it’s so special?

Since the founding of modern Turkey in 1922, the army has seen itself as the most important part of the country. Much of that is because of the man who made the nation, Mustafa Kemal — better known as Atatürk, “Father of the Turks.” (That’s a surname given to him by a grateful people in 1934, not the world’s greatest case of nominative determinism.) Go anywhere in Turkey and you’ll pass by busts of Atatürk gazing paternally down on the country he made.

Keystone/Getty Images

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938), Turkish general, nationalist leader, and president. Photo circa 1916.

Before Turkey, there was the Ottoman Empire, which by World War I was a crumbling, failed power trying desperately to reform. When the Ottomans picked the losing side in the war, it proved the final blow to the imperial system. Atatürk, one of the few successful Ottoman generals, carved the new, modern Turkish state out of the ruined body of the empire, establishing Turkey as we know it today.

He did so in the teeth of opposition from the victors, who had planned to split the Ottoman territories up between them, dividing up the fallen empire in a treaty signed in Sevres, France, in 1920. Brilliant resistance by Atatürk, including successful campaigning against an invading Greek army and others, produced the new nation.
 

That gave the army the most respected place in the new Turkey, but it also created a permanent military-political anxiety: “Sevres syndrome,” the belief that the rest of the world was always conspiring to split up Turkey. Outside forces weren’t the only enemy, however: Atatürk was determined to drag his country kicking and screaming into the modern world, and he saw religion as one of the chief obstacles to that.
 

The Ottomans had positioned themselves as the ordained leaders of Sunni Islam, but for Atatürk, Islam had been a dead weight on the country’s progress. Although he used religious language in public and claimed to be a Muslim in his autobiography, he was probably an atheist, or at least a tough-minded agnostic.
 

Atatürk borrowed a French idea, laïcité, the control of religion by the state. He brought religious bodies under the hand of the government, suppressed religious courts, changed the weekend from Friday and Saturday (the custom in most Muslim countries, since Friday is Islam’s holy day) to the Western style of Saturday and Sunday, and banned religious headgear for all but a select few.

The religious reforms were just one part of a much wider modernization program that included banning the traditional Turkish hat (called a fez) and switching from Arabic to Roman script, as well as visionary plans to promote women’s education, work, and political involvement. But while nobody was that attached to the fez, religious feeling would prove much harder to root out.
 

Independent Picture Service/UIG via Getty Images

Street vendor selling red fezzes and scarves, Turkey.

However, while the leaders of the new republic were secularists, even atheists, they were decidedly Sunni secularists — men who, as a local adaptation of a popular joke has it, believed “there is no Allah, and he chose Abu Bakr to lead the caliphate.” Mainstream Sunni institutions got softer treatment than more unorthodox forms of Islam like Sufism, yet alone Shia Muslims or Christians.

(This legacy lingered; when I worked at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Istanbul in 1994 as a teenager — I had an unusual childhood — the priests there had to switch from their clerical robes to business suits whenever they went outside to avoid being charged under the secularist laws. It was vanishingly rare for such a charge to be brought against Islamic preachers.)

That gave them the space to survive, and eventually to thrive again — and to play the role in politics that Atatürk had most feared.
 

Keeping democracy in hand — over and over again

After Atatürk’s death in 1938, “Kemalism,” as his policy of reform, secularization, and national unity came to be known, became the guiding ideal of the army, especially the officer class. With Islam out of fashion, Kemalism was the new faith, and Atatürk’s massive mausoleum, with its murals depicting the army guarding the republic, was its Mecca.

 

While Turkey was a one-party state, it was easy for the military to directly retain control. But as the country democratized after World War II, the growing power of the civilian government and a revival in religious practice increasingly worried military elites who saw themselves as the guardians of Atatürk’s legacy — especially against Islamic influence. The army still enjoyed plenty of privileges, including separate military courts that made its members virtually immune from civilian oversight or prosecution.
 

Yet that wasn’t enough. The military intervened repeatedly to keep Turkish democracy on what it thought was the right course in times of instability, staging forceful coups in 1960 and 1980 and effectively dismissing prime ministers from office in 1971 and 1997.

 

AA/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Former commander of the Turkish Air Force and one of the leaders of the 1980 military coup Tahsin Sahinkaya (second right), who died at the age of 90 in a hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 9, 2015, is seen with former commander of the Turkish Armed Forces Kenan Evren (center), former Turkish Naval Forces commander Nejat Tumer (left), former chief of the Army Nurettin Ersin (second left), and former commander of the Turkish Gendarmerie Forces Sedat Celasun (right) during a Turkish Victory Day parade on August 30.

It banned numerous political parties, especially ones with strong Islamic ties. But at first, the main targets tended to be the left, particularly groups sympathetic to Turkey’s embattled Kurdish minority. In its self-appointed task as the “guardian of democracy,” the military committed numerous atrocities.

The worst period was in the aftermath of the 1980 coup, when hundreds of thousands of citizens, mostly young people with left-wing sympathies, were arrested and tortured. Each time, democracy was eventually restored, but with considerable restraints imposed by the army

 

But it’s the 1997 coup that perhaps most typified Kemalist fears. Instead of being triggered by generalized instability, it targeted the power of the Islamic parties. These parties were riding a wave of renewed popularity — in large part because the military’s earlier actions had repressed more secular opposition groups and nearly shattered the left. The army’s thuggish excesses had ended up creating the very thing Kemalists most feared: a widely popular Islamic opposition.

It was this atmosphere that created the massive success of Erdoğan, a former mayor of Istanbul. His four-month prison sentence for reading an aggressively Islamist poem in 1997 only served to give him extra credibility to a public fed up with the military’s controls.

Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (more commonly known by its Turkish acronym, AKP) won a sweeping electoral victory against a divided opposition in 2002. Combined with a sudden economic boom in the early 2000s, this gave Erdoğan the mandate he needed to fight off Kemalist resistance.

 

The military, put off balance by the AKP’s success and as enthusiastic about Turkey’s sudden economic might as anyone else, failed to act. For his part, Erdoğan seemed to prefer pragmatism to Islamism, reassuring the public that he represented an accepting, compromising form of Islamic politics.
 

Turkey’s “deep state”: a political underworld

But to understand the atmosphere of fear and distrust swirling in Turkey, you need to take into account not just the military, but what Turks call the “deep state.” Buckle up, because things are about to get really weird.

 

You know your friend on Facebook who posts about how 9/11 was a CIA plot, Sandy Hook a false flag operation, and that Obama secretly conspired with Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden? Imagine that everything he said was, if not true, at least plausible, and you have some idea of what the deep background of Turkish politics looks like. Attempting to map out the relationships between the powerful ends up looking like one of those crazy boards full of string where the Illuminati control the Boy Scouts.

 

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Like this, only slightly more plausible.

The term to know here is “deep state,” or devin devlet, a term coined in the 1970s to describe the shadowy anti-democratic cabals that allegedly linked the military, organized crime, terrorists, foreign and domestic intelligence agencies, the government, and the judiciary in Turkey.

A loose outline goes like this: From the 1950s onward, backed by CIA funds under the anti-communist “Operation Gladio” — a Europe-wide program to create stay-behind forces in the event of Soviet invasion — elements within the Turkish military suborned numerous other groups to pursue their agenda.

 

This included ties to organized crime and heroin smuggling, especially from the 1970s onward, and the use of ultranationalist terrorist groups such as the Grey Wolves, a fanatic pan-Turkic movement, to create instability and murder the military’s enemies.

 

There’s no doubt that many of these conspiracies are, or were, real, and that elements in the Turkish military have always been willing to use dirty tricks, murder, terrorism, and repression to achieve their goals. The basement of Turkish politics is deep, dark, and full of spiders.

But the idea that all the various plots are part of one deeper, continuous conspiracy is only half-true. The problem is that the “deep state” has always reflected the worst fears of those making accusations about it. To Islamists, its fundamental purpose is to crush religion; for liberals, it’s anti-democratic; for Kurds, it’s fanatically nationalist and anti-Kurdish; for nationalists, it’s secretly in league with the US; for anti-Semites, it’s an Israeli-backed scheme.

 

A labyrinth of conspiracies, some overlapping with each other, and many undertaken primarily to line the pockets of their backers, seems far more likely than a single, centrally directed grand conspiracy. But agencies inside the military, such as the “Special Warfare Department” and “Gendarmerie Counter-Terrorism Unit,” were undoubtedly the minotaur at the heart of the labyrinth, crunching on the bones of thousands of sacrificial victims.

 

By the 2000s, the Turkish public was fed up with being lied to, eager for change, and a massive producer and consumer of new media. Major scandals in the late 1990s exposed the dirty links between the security forces, the government, and organized crime and fueled a desire to see the “deep state” exposed.

 

The increased openness, and the AKP’s anti-Kemalist sentiments, brought some of the atrocities of the past to light. The perpetrators of past coups were put on trial. Constitutional reforms weakened the role of the military, especially its courts. The reputation of the army plummeted in Transparency International’s surveys, from the most trusted national institution in 2004 to being perceived as just as corrupt as politicians by 2011.

 

Yet the idea of the deep state also acted as a vehicle for a new wave of political persecutions, and as a shield for the corrupt to defend themselves against accusations. That’s been particularly the case for Erdoğan, an enthusiastic campaigner for the “annihilation” of the deep state.

The exemplar was the 2008 Ergenekon accusations, where hundreds of defendants — a mixture of military officials and civil leaders — were blamed for a secret plot to overthrow the government. That plot possibly existed, in some form or another, but it was also clear that many of the defendants were there for opposing Erdoğan, and that the campaign was a way to further his own power.

Islam Yakut/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Sedat Peker, alleged Mafia leader with links to the “deep state” in the Ergenekon coup plot case, is released from Silivri Prison in Istanbul on March 10, 2014.

Think of McCarthyism in the US. There were real Communist infiltrators, but their numbers were tiny compared to the frenzy of accusations hurled by McCarthy for the sake of his own career.

So it is with Erdoğan: As the coup has bloodily shown, he has real and dangerous opponents — but his accusations have always gone far beyond their real numbers, and threaten innocent and guilty alike. (This prescient 2012 New Yorker profile by Dexter Filkins is worth reading in full.) The Sledgehammer accusations in 2010, another supposed military plot, served the same purpose as Ergenekon while being even less plausible.

 

Instead of bringing a cleansing light to Turkish politics, then, the AKP-led attacks on the “deep state” ended up being part of the transformation of its own support base into a new form of the deep state.

“There is plausible circumstantial evidence that the old deep state, together with new additions, is back on the streets,” Öktem told me. “The kind of violence and symbolic humiliation and extrajudicial killings is extremely reminiscent of the 1990s, when deep state operatives were pretty much ruling the Kurdish provinces. The novelty is the presence of actors who seem to use a jihadist rhetoric and a deeply religious language.”

 

False flags and exiled teachers

Complicating this is the role of Fethullah Gülen, a charismatic Islamic preacher, businessman, and educator who has built up a massive movement in Turkey since the 1970s (although he’s lived in the US since 1999 for “health reasons”).

 

His movement emphasizes modernity, community, and social action, and he has strong ties to Sufism, a peaceful, esoteric Islamic tradition with a long history in Turkey. This let him build up his power base while being seen as a potential ally to every side.

 

Even his form of Islam was acceptable to the Kemalists, with its emphasis on private worship and obedience to the Turkish state; it also struck a chord with millions of Turks who valued faith but didn’t want it to dominate life.

 

The Gülenist movement emphasized joining the state in order to gradually shift it toward Islamic ideals; thousands of military and police officers, judges, and civil servants were members or sympathizers, often owing their job to other Gülenists.
 

OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images

Embroidered images of Fethullah Gülen (left) and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (right) are displayed in a shop on January 17, 2014, in Gaziantep, near the Turkish-Syrian border.

At first, Gülen was a strong ally of Erdoğan. Gülenist media cheered on the Ergenekon case and called for the destruction of the old “deep state.” The Gülenists could be ruthless in exploiting their power, too; investigative journalist Ahmet Sik was detained for a year, and his work destroyed, when he wrote a book on the movement.

 

But in late 2013, Erdoğan turned on Gülen and his followers, accusing them of being the new deep state, working to subvert the intelligence services and overthrow his government Although tensions had been building for some time, the immediate cause was a corruption scandal involving the children of senior AKP leaders, including Erdoğan, which the president claimed was a plot by the Gülenists.

 

Today, Gülen functions in Erdoğan’s rhetoric in much the same way Leon Trotsky did in Joseph Stalin’s: as a traitor and manipulator who can be blamed for everything that goes wrong. Gülen’s supporters have been systematically purged from the police and the government.

It is no surprise, then, that Erdoğan immediately accused the Gülenists of masterminding Friday's coup attempt. While it is unclear at this point whether Gülen and his followers were in any way involved (which they have flatly denied), it’s certainly possible, since the army was virtually the only area that hadn’t yet been ideologically cleansed since 2013.

 

That meant there was still a substantial collection of officers with Gülenist ties, as there had been in every Turkish institution before the purges. They had good reason to fear that they might be the next target — which could have been what prompted the sloppy and ill-planned coup.

But in a twist typical of conspiratorial politics, Turks opposed to Erdoğan, including Gülen, are already accusing him of being behind the plot. That seems an improbable and highly risky move.

Yet he’s seizing the chance to eliminate his enemies, calling the coup a “gift from God.” The event is being compared to the 1933 Reichstag fire that gave Hitler his final excuse to seize absolute power; Erdoğan has said outright in the past that he admires Hitler’s “reforms.”

The military’s threat to Turkish democracy may now be over, perhaps for good. But with it may go other aspects of the Kemalist legacy: a desire to look to Europe, a preference for the modern and the urban, and the will to keep religion from dominating politics.

 

Erdoğan’s populist authoritarianism threatens a frightening change in Turkey — a dictatorship with the barest veneer of democracy laid over it as cover, fueled by resentment and religious conviction, and drawing in elements from jihadists to intelligence officers to organized crime to shield itself and assault its enemies.

 

Disturbing pictures of soldiers lynched on the street are already emerging, although it’s hard to tell whether these represent semi-organized violence by Erdoğan-affiliated militias or the fury of the crowd in response to the army’s own killings. Erdoğan has begun a wave of rolling purges and arrests removing the last vestiges of his political and judicial opposition.
 

Despite their fear of Erdoğan, the opposition turned out into the streets that night to save democracy from the military. Whether they can keep together to defend the rights the Turkish people faced down tanks to protect is another question.
 

James Palmer is a writer and historian living in Beijing.